Posted tagged ‘Hitler’

Personal expression takes on many forms. Got something to say? Write a song. Draw a picture. Compose a poem. Do a dance. Heck, you can even express yourself by going for a run – as proved by Kevin Bacon in the film Footloose. As everyone knows, Bacon used running and dancing to not only express himself, but to help solve his problems and save the youth in his town from the repression of Jon Lithgow. Oh, and I guess he used gymnastics too.

pick up your Sunday shoes, Kevin.

Lithgow thought he was keeping kids safe from the dangers of rock ‘n’ roll. He decided that music and dancing threatened youth, and used his authority on the Town Council to get them banned. He connected personal expression with societal ills that were a blight on respectable values, and kids’ safety. Dancing was a gateway drug to trouble.

The Second World War: While often remembered as “the Good War” in Western historical memory, it sure had a lot of not so good things happen in it. Contentious debate has arisen over the memory of the war (what we learn in school, and what we see in Steven Spielberg productions) versus what actually happened. For example:

From the top: An invading Nazi army? Nope, that’s the Red one – heading into Poland in 1939 to help Hitler carve up the country. Stalin was, of course, an ally of Nazi Germany until the Soviet Union was invaded in June of 1941. The next one: A starved civilian in German or Japanese occupied territory? Nope, that’s an image from the famine in British India in 1943. And the next: That’s the German city of Hamburg after the Allies bombed it to bits. The bottom picture is from Berlin in 1945, after Germany’s surrender.

At the end of the year, the nice folks at WordPress send an email out to blogpeople (is that the politically correct term?) giving stats on how many people visited their blog, which post was the most popular, etc. Each blogperson can then post these stats on their blog, to show off to others how many visitors they had in 2010.

Since it’s common knowledge that millions of people visit this site everyday, the hardworking legions here at thepastisunwritten (dotcom) thought it might be better to post some of the more…unusual…funny…interesting…scary…google searches that led people to this site. Except for the very last one, these are all unedited. One thing is for sure, the modern day gumshoes of the internetmachine sure don’t search like they used to.

Say somebody has a brilliant argument. It’s well articulated, insightful, and has profound implications for the entire world. Literally, this argument could change the direction of all humankind. BUT THEN, when everything seems to be going great, the person making the argument uses the “Hitler Analogy,” where they compare something to Hitler, like, say, “People that don’t agree with me about this are just like Nazis.”

Suddenly, all credibility is lost. Forever. A bad analogy just stopped the potential for a change to all civilization, because of a silly analogy.

Just as serious and dangerous as the “Hitler Analogy” is the “Hitler Moustache.” You may have seen it being put on United States President B. Obama lately, from what I can tell because he likes health care. I was in Seattle a few weeks ago doing “research” and was walking by Pike Market about to go into my hostel when I noticed some guys on the street corner with big picket signs, being ignored by everyone that walked by. So of course I went over to them to see what was going on.